That Happened Too (3)
That Happened Too (3)
While walking along the sewer path, I heard someone calling out to me.
"Hey, brats!"
Since the village was close, I willingly raised my head to look that way. If the village hadn't been close, I would've just let it go in one ear and out the other.
In the direction the voice came from stood a vagrant with a familiar face.
I didn't know what kind of past he had or how he had lived his life, but just by looking at his outward appearance, it was easy enough to guess. He was a man in rough, shabby clothes.
A metal framework slathered in chrome (not real chrome material) flaunted its presence through the tears in his artificial skin.
He had draped a threadbare blanket over one shoulder.
Instead of an arm, a sharp metal object showed beneath the frayed edge of the split blanket.
I didn't know its exact identity.
But its combat purpose was clear.
In this place where you lived hand to mouth, day by day, the mere fact that he was still walking around with functioning cyberware let me catch on to the man's grim way of life.
I didn't know his nickname.
He was just a village vagrant whose face I'd seen a few times coming and going.
"What."
Geumjjogi warily eyed the vagrant while muttering something that sounded like Japanese song lyrics. She was one step ahead of me.
Her hand was inside her clothes. She wasn't hiding her hostile posture; she was openly displaying it.
Perhaps that sight came across as endearing in turn.
The vagrant chuckled and waved his hand.
"Haha, even for someone like me, I'm not so devoid of conscience as to steal from brats like you."
Conscience, huh.
That's not a word you'd expect to come out of a sewer district where contaminated water flows.
In fact, precisely because of those words, my and Geumjjogi's wariness only grew.
...Like that Teddy bastard earlier.
Normally he was the type we'd just glance at and pass by, but I don't know why so many people were trying to talk to us today of all days.
Perhaps reading our mood, the vagrant took some kind of electronic device out from his blanket and made an excuse.
"Here, here. Look at this. This is why I called you."
"......."
No, even if he says it's because of this, how are we supposed to know what that is.
I frowned and looked at the electronic device held in the vagrant's hand.
It was shaped like a smartphone from the original world.
When the vagrant pressed a button on the unknown device, a bright voice that didn't fit the mood of this place rang out loudly from the previously blank screen.
【Pit Mac! Pit Mac! Pit Mac! Who's that? He's every child's friend! Hurry on over to the nearest Koozaka 'Pit Mac Burger' right now! Buy the new 'Burger That Almost Got Made With Real Pork' and you'll get a special prize in a drawing!The drawing probability is 1 in 100,000, and even if you win, prize delivery may be impossible due to a system error.】
The last part was oddly fast, so I couldn't hear it properly.
"".......""
Anyway.
Geumjjogi and I blankly listened to the voice coming from the electronic device the vagrant was holding.
...Was that an ad?
I really don't get this world's sensibilities.
The vagrant held the device out toward us after the ad finished and continued speaking.
"It's such a cheap product that you have to watch ads no matter what, you see. Anyway, brat, was it Bisiri?"
The vagrant looked at me and spoke.
"Isn't this the kind of thing you were looking for? An electronic device that can watch videos connected to the net space. I'll make you a special deal: trade for three days' worth of rations—."
"I'll buy it."
I didn't hesitate.
Geumjjogi, who was next to me, looked at me as if I were crazy.
No.
How could I pass up a machine that can watch YouTu○e.
It was a really good deal.
26. That Kind of Thing Happened Too (3)
【Pit Mac! Pit Mac! Pit—.】
I irritably covered the screen with my hand.
"Ugh."
My body hadn't fully grown yet, so I couldn't cover the entire screen with just my palm, but that alone was enough to give me peace of mind and body.
Just this fucking ad.
I wish I could do something about it.
Even when trying to watch a single video, ads popped up constantly, so I understood why the original owner had thrown this thing away.
Maybe because we were in a cyberpunk world steeped in capitalism, I couldn't even lower the volume.
...Was it over?
I had no idea what the hell that Pit Mac bastard did.
But I kind of wanted to set the store on fire.
Feeling my patience wearing thin, I looked down at the screen again.
I had to search enough for the videos I wanted before the battery ran out. Time like this was extremely precious.
To charge electronic devices in a sewer like this, I had to spend rations I'd gathered through barter.
If I tried to explain the importance of a single meal, there would be no end to it. So Geumjjogi had even nagged me, asking why I was wasting rations on something like that.
But this was a necessary expenditure for me.
It was an essential choice, or close to it, for me to live 'properly' in this world going forward.
I entered a search term again.
The keyword was 'magic'.
Excluding trashy videos that went 'pew-pew' and aimed to attract views, I scrolled down and searched for videos with low view counts instead.
I didn't know the reason.
But the lower the view count, the more often the videos were actually helpful to me.
I watched a video and muttered to myself.
"...This is legit."
From now on, I'll call you my teacher in my heart, Master.
I didn't have an account, so I couldn't leave a comment.
I expressed sufficient gratitude, at least in my heart.
Just like that.
How much time passed while I was watching videos useful to me?
Melted candle wax dripped onto the floor.
The flame flickered as its light weakened, and the dancing shadows dimly lit the inside of the sewer.
I didn't know exactly because I didn't have a clock.
But the sun had probably set.
Considering how hungry I was right now, exactly that much time seemed to have passed.
I lifted myself up from my personal bed, made of pieces of cardboard I'd laid down here and there.
It was the area where Geumjjogi and I stayed together.
It was too cramped to stand up straight, but it was safe because it didn't attract people's attention that much.
The mere fact that contaminated water didn't flow right in front of it made it an A-class lodging.
"Geumjjogi, are you sulking?"
I moved to the spot where Geumjjogi usually stayed.
They were my rations anyway.
But she seemed dissatisfied that her close friend was spending rations on strange things.
'I'll just sleep, so you take care of it yourself.'
She had said that and laid down.
I wondered if she was still sleeping even now.
"......."
But.
Geumjjogi, who had been there until just a while ago, had vanished without a trace.
Geumjjogi....
Where did you go again.
"Sigh."
Did she run away because the ads were noisy?
If she were a grown-up, I'd just stop caring.
But she was still a kid, so even if I tried not to worry, I couldn't help it.
I crawled out of the dwelling, paying attention to any signs of people.
Anyway, at this hour, there weren't many places Geumjjogi could go.
It was terribly dark outside, so entrusting your life to the moonlight was practically suicide.
The inside of the sewer was the same.
The later it got, the worse public safety became.
Based on that kind of rational deduction, I narrowed Geumjjogi's movement patterns down to a few possibilities.
At most, Four-eyes' clinic.
Or—.
I set a single destination and moved my feet.
Whenever I heard the sound of people or other living creatures, I hid my body in the shadows. My life was precious.
Crossing contaminated water, dodging steam vapors, crawling under pipes—.
Lastly, I grabbed the rusty iron ladder and climbed upward with long strides.
"So you were here."
I was able to find Geumjjogi sitting on the floor, looking outside the iron bars.
Just because it was the sewer district didn't mean it was always located below ground.
There were places like this, even inside the sewer, where you could see the scenery outside.
Even though she must have heard my voice, Geumjjogi was still looking outside the iron bars.
I slowly approached Geumjjogi's side.
I plopped down onto the floor and turned my head in the direction Geumjjogi was looking.
Beyond the iron bars, beyond the trash mountain, beyond the giant scrap metal collection machine, I gazed upon Neon City, a city where brilliant light blazed out over the sturdy walls.
Maybe because you could look at the city without being threatened by the corporations' killer drones outside, Geumjjogi really liked this spot.
In the Little One's golden eyes, there was an emotion you could call 'hope' or 'a dream'.
Geumjjogi broke the silence.
"Did I tell you before? That I was helping you because you resemble a Little One I was close with."
Hmm, honestly, I didn't remember well.
But for now, I decided to play along.
I nodded in agreement.
"I heard it a long time ago. You said it was a boy with a good personality, like me?"
"It was a girl Little One that I looked after like a little sister. After she got taken by a drone, I never saw her again."
"......."
I wished I could turn back time and take back what I said.
I continued a brief silence and then asked again.
"...But, how does a girl resemble me—."
"That Little One's dream was like this: to someday go into the city and try a proper hamburger."
Lightly ignoring my question, Geumjjogi continued the story.
Probably the ad I'd been watching—the one for Pit Mac Burger—had stirred up the past.
...Hmm.
Being an 'I' and also a 'T', I asked based on facts.
"If you just dig through the trash, proper hamburgers pop up all the time anyway."
In reality, in this place where the concept of recycling didn't exist, it was the most commonly seen type of food.
For reference, I ate one yesterday too.
Zzirit, Geumjjogi's sharp gaze turned toward me.
No, it's a fact, you know.
I subtly avoided Geumjjogi's gaze.
Geumjjogi turned her gaze back beyond the iron bars.
Had puberty hit recently?
Geumjjogi had become more emotional than usual.
I lightly sighed and read the room. I'd have to stop the jokes around here.
"...I said I'd help you later, didn't I?"
"When you're physically weak, how can you help."
"I told you, I have tremendous talent even though I look like this."
This was something I'd said to Geumjjogi whenever I was bored.
With an expression as if she were looking at a pathetic person, Geumjjogi looked my way.
"...That, what was it. Magic?"
"Yeah."
I nodded confidently.
It was, after all, a talent for 'magic'.
A talent created through character creation.
I had even watched videos and learned from them today.
Sending a single kid to the city shouldn't be a hard task.
Tomorrow, I would be able to change class from 'Vagrant Boy' to 'Mage'.
"...Good for you, make sure you help me later."
Maybe my words sounded like a joke.
Geumjjogi smirked and nodded without much feeling.
Alright, she smiled.
Seizing the moment, I held out my hand to Geumjjogi and spoke.
"If we're going to wake up early tomorrow too, we should sleep now. And that city over there, it won't be too late even if you go when you're older."
Geumjjogi, who had been looking down at my hand, lifted herself up on her own and got up from the spot.
How embarrassingly cold.
"Yeah, let's go to sleep."
And so we returned to the dwelling together.
And then, when I woke up from sleep, instead of Geumjjogi, a single piece of paper was left behind.
She must have roughly learned her letters from Four-eyes.
The state of the handwriting was all crooked and flying around. At this point, did you actually write this with your foot?
I slowly interpreted the characters written on the paper.
"'I'll be back after looking at the city a bit, so don't go anywhere and just wait', it says. ......Hmm."
.......
I just sigh.
Anyway, she never fucking listens to a word I say.
Getting up from the spot, I ran out to find Geumjjogi's whereabouts.
* * *
"She really, absolutely never listened. I didn't call her Geumjjogi for nothing. She was like that then, and even now—."
"......Even now?"
"She listens really well now."
The grown-up Geumjjogi, Catherine, wore a proud expression at my answer and nodded.
Revealing the truth was this dangerous.